Question: What has been the most amazing thing you have found? :)

Edward Codling answered on 13 Jun 2011:

That’s a tough one!

One of the most interesting things I found was when I did an experiment with real human crowds. I had previously done some computer simulations about how animal groups might navigate and make a decision about where to go. We had to test this simulation prediction with some real experiments but it was very difficult to use animals so we used humans as they are easier to control and tell what to do! Anyway, our real experiments matched the simulation predictions and we were able to get a better understanding of how human crowds might behave. This was quite an interesting topic for some people so I had to do some radio interviews to talk about it!

I hope to do some more experiments like this in the future!

Some other research I have done which is important but perhaps not quite as exciting was when we looked at how cod and other fish in the Irish sea were being managed. We wrote a paper about how they were being overfished and we were then invited to a special meeting of the European Commisson who were deciding on a new fishing policy for cod across the whole of Europe. So our work played a small part in changing how fisheries in Europe worked – this was quite exciting to be part of!